IITs Ranked as 4th Largest Producer of Unicorn Startups in the World It is Indian Institute of Technology in India that tops the spot when you rank universities by the number of unicorn founders. According to a new research report conducted by a UK-based Sage, an accounting and Payroll Company, Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) is […]

It is Indian Institute of Technology in India that tops the spot when you rank universities by the number of unicorn founders.

According to a new research report conducted by a UK-based Sage, an accounting and Payroll Company, Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) is on the 4th position in the list of producing unicorn startups in the world. Sage came out with the names of universities which have produced the unicorn entrepreneurs in past few years. The report claimed that US-based Stanford University is on the top position as it has produced 51 unicorn entrepreneurs who are on the top of the world with great business ideas. According to this report, Harvard University is at 2nd place whereas University of California is on 3rd position.

Sage has made this list on the parameters like Learning, Teaching and Resources etc. Whereas among the various Indian IITs, it is Delhi IIT on the top rank that has produced the highest number of unicorn founders. US based Stanford University maintained the 1st spot in the list with 51 unicorn founders followed by Harvard University with 37 unicorn founders. University of California comes on 3rd spot with 18 unicorn founders. IITs India follows 4th position with 12 unicorn founders. The report claimed that all unicorns that have created billion-dollar startups have academic roots in IITs.

Indian Unicorns

Within last few years, the various IITs have produced the India’s startup eco system’s unicorns. Those startups which have valuations ranging above one million dollar are; Sachin and Binny Bansal of Flipkart, Deepinder Goyal of Zomato, Sanjay Seth of ShopClues, Rohit Bansal of Snapdeel, Pranay Chulet of Quikr and ShopClues’s Sanjay Sethi are few names of the founders produced by IIT Delhi. Bombay IIT produced Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati, Ola’s co-founders. These are few names of successful founders who have their academic base in IITs.

How IITs Create Unicorns?

How IITs help in producing top entrepreneurs and leaders whom we call ‘Unicorns’? Unfortunately, this is reality that IITs graduates can pass a number of hurdles of entrepreneurship in the initial phase of startup. As a result, investors bet on IITs graduates easily without thinking much about business ideas. While the graduates from other business schools often struggle more to be successful or winning the confidence of investors.

Few factors that differentiate IITs are;

Good faculty and students.

Follow rigorous study programs and competitive culture.

Confidence of starting again even if the idea fails.

Studies culture these institutes have been cultivated over the time.

Students carrying realistic approach that makes them connected to the society.

They understand the problems exist in the society and look for effective solutions to solve these problems and become successful entrepreneurs.

A strong network of alumni.

IITs have a strong ecosystem that support startups and entrepreneurs

All these factors contribute in creating the right ambience to foster entrepreneurship and creating unicorns. Moreover, IIT graduates also prefer to go to Sillicon Valley for higher studies so that they can get an access of a better entrepreneurial ecosystem for creating billion – dollar startups rather than taking jobs.

The research also found that for over 60 per cent of the founders, the current unicorn was the only company they had ever built. However, those who founded more than one company have, on average, a 34.5 per cent higher valuation than those who founded just one company.

In terms of countries that are home to the most number of unicorns, US tops the list with 144 unicorns, China is on second position with 47 unicorns while India grabs the 3rd position with 10 plus unicorns . Year 2015 was identified as the year of the unicorn with 86 companies achieving the unicorn status. Unlike 2015, in 2016 only 41 new companies came out despite the fact that the Indian government has launched “the Startup India” and many other startup friendly regulations.

Key Challenges and Opportunities for Indian Startups and Entrepreneurs India is an emerging market for startups and entrepreneurs. Although for new businesses, there are some key challenges that are very difficult to conquer. Without overpowering these challenges entrepreneurs and startups cannot build a big business. If you are just getting into business, be ready for […]

Key Challenges and Opportunities for Indian Startups and Entrepreneurs

India is an emerging market for startups and entrepreneurs. Although for new businesses, there are some key challenges that are very difficult to conquer. Without overpowering these challenges entrepreneurs and startups cannot build a big business. If you are just getting into business, be ready for both challenges and opportunities that will come in your way.

The Entrepreneurship Cell-E-CELL organised a two-day national level E-Summit at the IIT Bombay campus. During this occasion, a number of eminent personalities from various industries and organizations shared their knowledge on different areas coupled to the entrepreneurship. Here Niti Aayog, CEO, Amitabh Kant spoke on key challenges and opportunities for Indian startups and upcoming businesses. Based on the shared knowledge by Amitabh Kant we have compiled few points below which differentiate India’s from other countries.

Ecosystem

According to Kant, “The Indian government is helping startups and entrepreneurs by scrapping old rules presented there for more than 60 years.” A set of new guidelines and policies is launched by the present government to promote innovative activities in India. ‘The Startup India’ is a flagship program intended to reduce the rules and regulations burden from Startups. In case of taxes, exemptions are given all along easing compliance and reducing regulations. Startup India Hub is a single-point of contact for providing help to new businesses. Through this platform startups are able to register a business by just filling up a short form from single-point of contact online or through the mobile app. In addition, the numbers of registration forms for a startup have been also reduced and it is only three now.

Globalization

Globalization and entrepreneurship can go hand in hand! Globalization facilitates technological innovations that help entrepreneurs to ensure growth through easy processes. Kant said, “Globalization is the key to success and for that it is important to dream big.” Entrepreneurs will grow automatically, if they continue to extend globally. So, it means for entrepreneurs to become the part of the global world in very important.

Competition

Entrepreneurs can leverage maximum benefits from competition! A healthy competition helps to grow creatively all along the development of new skills. Kant believes that the competition within states will increase the number of startups as it support talent and increase investments among startup system. It will also come up with various solutions for water management and modernization of agriculture. There is a huge community of investors that offer support to businesses who want to grow in a competitive atmosphere.

Population

Unlike the west, India accounts more than 72 per cent young population below the age of 32 years which makes the country more promising for the people who have entrepreneurial mind sets. But Kant pointed out, India need to grow at a rate of 8-9 per cent by filling gender gap. Here women contribute only 17 per cent to the total GDP while globally women contribution is 30 per cent and this gap is huge.

Innovation Hubs

India is a grooming destination for innovation and the cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad and others are leading names in the list of innovation hubs with a well established infrastructure to support innovations. In addition, many big companies or MNCs have also established their base in these cities so that they can get benefit of innovations at a low cost. As a result these hubs have also opened new avenues for IITs graduates with innovative ideas and need support system to convert these ideas into businesses.

Challenges Means Opportunities

India is facing various challenges like population, poverty, sewage, water management, over use of plastic etc. and all this need to be solved through innovative ways. Kant said that Silicon Valley have least problems but highest number of innovations. But opposite to this India have high number of problems with least number of solutions that opens doors for businesses with innovative ideas. Urbanization is other key challenge which is attracting foreign investors’ interest in the innovative ideas related to electrical vehicles and climate change etc.

Future

The future of India lies in a strong startup ecosystem. Studies indicate that the startup India movement has energized startups and entrepreneurs. India will have 100,000 startups by 2022-23 which will create new job opportunities through their startup ventures.

Transparency is the USP of their Products, tells Crowd Testing Platform 99tests Necessity of software testing is becoming more important and inevitable as technologies are accelerating the growth of any business. With an invincible and indispensable strategy to provide clients the access to the right crowd-sourced testers online, 99tests came into existence in 2011. Since […]

Necessity of software testing is becoming more important and inevitable as technologies are accelerating the growth of any business. With an invincible and indispensable strategy to provide clients the access to the right crowd-sourced testers online, 99tests came into existence in 2011. Since then, it supports clients to define their projects and manage the execution of projects. Over five years 99tests has assembled over 15000 testers across the globe, skilled in various aspects of testing. Nonetheless, over four lakh testing engineers are beneficiary of this platform. Their quality control and assurance platform have helped over 300 businesses meet their expected standards for software applications.

Mentored by legends like Kris Gopalakrishnan, founding member of Infosys, Steve P Coles CIO of Allianz and Teruhide Sato, founder of Beenos group (a global E-commerce and venture capital firm), this online crowd testing platform provides economical and effective crowd sourced testing solutions that enable individuals and businesses to pursue excellence in technology. To ensure that the testers chosen for the project fit within the client’s way of testing to minimize costs and hassles at the client side, 99tests follows a particular system. As a result their customers get the results they are looking for, within the time frame they want.

Headquartered in Bangalore, the company has partnership and strong presence in US, UK and Australia. Since the workforce of fourteen employees creates success stories, 99tests has invested in various employee engagement and development activities to hone the skills of the team. Their monthly employee events calendar constitute of two full day sessions on leadership and soft skills development aimed to empower the team. Their goal is to create keep the work environment happy and productive.

99tests provides quality testing services that can improve software quality at every stage of the product life cycle. Its global network of professional testers have helped startups, SMBs and big enterprises to improve the quality of their web, mobile and enterprise Apps. Currently, these are the software testing services that they provide:

Whether it is a new web application or an app, testing is a crucial step that ensures the functionality and quality of the application. Their crowd testing platform enables enterprises to access quality testing solutions at reasonable prices. One of the key advantages, they have is the domain experience they bring. It gives them the competitive edge to tackle many of the issues including coming up with the right algorithms which is the basis for a crowd based platform. They feel the USP of their product is the transparency it offers to the clients. Clients get the power to create the test plan, track the progress of their projects and turn off the service at their discretion. Crowd testing works beautifully for consumer faced testing for applications that are used by many individuals. With the booming app industry and the positive feedbacks, 99tests is receiving from their existing clients, they are very optimistic about the growth potential for crowd testing platform in the coming days.

“ One example would be the way we handled the project for our client, Flipkart. When Flipkart approached us for testing their first smartphone app for shopping, we knew the criticality of finding & fixing crucial bugs before the public launch of their app. The speedy & effective delivery of results helped Flipkart’s developers immensely. With our results, their engineers were able to write user accepted scripts without using codes. We helped them in detecting and fixing crucial bugs in time to enable the successful launch of the Flipkart app, ” says 99tests.

Their pricing plans are segmented to cater to the four major kinds of clients:

Self-Serve:

Designed for start-ups, and entrepreneurs

Ideal for small development teams with no QA

Cost-Effective testing plans suited for App launches

Uncovers critical issues before launch

Subscription:

Designed for small & medium business owners

Suitable for larger teams with QA

Regular testing plans designed for stable Apps

Makes new updates easy & uncovers security issues

Enterprise:

Designed for large corporations

Suitable for Enterprise applications

Secure, Enterprise class testing service

Test across multiple languages & countries

Partnership:

Sign up for Partnership plan

Partner in the crowd testing success story

Gain new customers in new segments

Delight customers with quality software

The Founders

Praveen Singh

Co-Founder and CEO

Praveen Singh, a start-up evangelist is the Co-Founder and CEO of 99tests. He has worked earlier with leading software companies like Oracle, Webmethods and VMLogix (now acquired by Citrix). He brings in the business strategy, marketing and sales experience of running a start-up. He tweets at @praveensinghhv .

Naveen Kumar

Co-Founder

Naveen Kumar, IIT Bombay alumnus is the Co-Founder of 99tests. He has worked with SAP and has also founded Foodtang, a food delivery start-up in the past. He brings in the technical skills, algorithms and operations experience of running a start-up. He can be followed on twitter @naveenkr59.

“We feel the biggest merit our clients gain, is the easy access to skilled testers at economical prices, which is hard to get in the marketplace today. In contrast to crowd testing, traditional software testing options cost you a hefty price. An added advantage here is that you pay only for outcomes that are produced. That is, you pay only for the bugs found or for the test cases executed. This ensures that the system is transparent, and you know exactly what you are paying for. Clients also get the option to test in various geographies, on different devices, platforms and other variables as per their needs. We let them prioritize the features that they want to test and give them full control over the process. While clients on the platform enjoy the benefit of fast and economical testing solutions, testers get the chance to hone their skills and earn through paid projects from anywhere in the world. We are moving to a new era of innovative solutions for testing that will enable companies to meet their software quality requirements faster and with more ease,” a spokesperson from 99tests said.

Mentors

Kris Gopalakrishnan

Co-Founder of Infosys

Kris Gopalakrishnan, IIT Madras, alumnus, and one of the founding members of Infosys, is among their leading mentors. A recipient of the Padma Bhushan award for his role in research, Kris drives their passion for technology.

Steve P Coles

CIO at Allianz

Steve P Coles, CIO at Allianz, an international financial services company is a key mentor at 99tests. With an experience of over a decade in technology, he is passionate about innovative tech aided business transformations.

Teruhide Sato

Founder of Beenos and Beenext

Teruhide Sato, founder of Beenos group, a global E-commerce and venture capital firm is one of their key mentors. Serial entrepreneur Teruhide is passionate about empowering entrepreneurs who solve problems and bring fruitful changes.

]]>https://startupcityindia.com/2017/06/transparency-usp-products-tells-crowd-testing-platform-99tests/feed/0WINIX Technologies: Team of mavericks leading the IOT Product development Space in Indiahttps://startupcityindia.com/2017/06/winix-technologies-team-of-mavericks-leading-the-iot-product-development-space-in-india/
https://startupcityindia.com/2017/06/winix-technologies-team-of-mavericks-leading-the-iot-product-development-space-in-india/#respondTue, 20 Jun 2017 11:05:28 +0000http://startupcityindia.com/?p=3771

WINIX Technologies: Team of mavericks leading the IOT Product development Space in India It is an undeniable truth that India has always faced severe challenges on its path towards becoming a leading manufacturing base for electronic products in global ecosystem. In the year 2014, Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi launched ‘Make in India’ project as […]

WINIX Technologies: Team of mavericks leading the IOT Product development Space in India

It is an undeniable truth that India has always faced severe challenges on its path towards becoming a leading manufacturing base for electronic products in global ecosystem. In the year 2014, Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi launched ‘Make in India’ project as an initiative towards making India the hub of the global manufacturing. An amazing duo of tech enthusiasts, Subhajeet Roy & Ajay Singh aligned their aspirations with this project and came together to establish WINIX Technologies, a leading Wireless hardware and software solution provider for IOT and Audio Streaming Product in May, 2015. Having gathered a rich experience while working with leading multinational companies in the past, these two techies identified the prevailing gaps in the landscape of electronic products manufacturing in India. They conceptualized WINIX Technologies with the vision of developing absolutely genuine and robust products that would perform even in the most difficult situations. With more than forty years of extensive experience held by the management team in building IOT and Streaming products The team WINIX takes the credit of developing some of the most popular Audio streaming products for international Tier 1 customers.

Product Portfolio

WINIX has been providing its state of the art solutions on Low latency audio streaming to Tier1 Original Equipment Manufacturers. Winix’s best-in-class technology makes video and audio streaming possible from source to destination in nearly seventeen meters (milliseconds) all over standard Wi-Fi; which is actually a next to impossible task. Besides this, WINIX’s rich portfolio envelops two exclusive IOT products, WI- MAP & WI-CAM, which exhibit strong potential in changing the face of security space in our country. Let’s take a brief look into them:

WI-MAP: An Indoor Location Intelligence Platform, WI-MAP combines best of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth low energy and sensors. The product is developed to serve retail infrastructures and to accurately define POS (Point of Sale) by knowing customer movement in real-time. Wi-MAP can also enable parents and teachers to know the location of their kids in real-time. It can be used to collect movement of people through an area; to provide them with turn-by-turn indoor guidance on a map or floor plan; trigger actions when a device is near or leaves a point of interest; and follow in real-time the movements of people and assets and more . It is notable that with all these features a person’s privacy is completely secured.

WI-CAM: This product completely survives on Wi-Fi and stands tall among other as it saves from huge cost of cabling and hustle of wiring. Not only that, it differs from other Internet Protocol (IP) cameras as it creates a powerful and self reorganizing Wi-Fi mesh network which can cover huge areas. Empowered with WINIX’s state of the art (IDAA) Interference detection and Avoidance algorithm, WICAM possesses strong capabilities in providing remote monitoring of furthest corners of a building which are far away from the internet hotspot right from a smart phone. Also, Wi-CAMs are equipped with Winix’s state of the art face detection technology, which enables them to match faces with pre-stored ones. Furthermore, they can detect not moving object like a stationary suitcase in a busy area and generate alerts for security if needed. Multiple Wi-CAMs can be installed to monitor different spaces and can be managed simultaneously using a single APP on Android or IOS phone.

In such a short span of time, WINIX has gained a strong foothold in the market building creative and powerful products that guarantee highest standards of quality. With a strong focus on earning clients’ trust and reputation in the market, the team strives to innovate and develop groundbreaking products that promise great Quality and performance and are dedicated to solve major business as well as social problems that act as impediments in the path of India’s growth. It involves in continuous Research and Development to stay informed about the latest technologies and upgradation on the old ones and move ahead towards achieving their mission.

The firm started its operations on a venture capital business model. Initially, the firm had to face some challenges to bring in investment as it is always difficult to find investment for technical companies in India especially when one wants to build electronic hardware products. The team had to put determined efforts and prove their engineering skills to the investors abroad to make them believe that genuine products can actually be built from India. Finally, its inventive concepts succeeded in convincing Japanese firms, who are in business of creating quality products for last thirty five years, to invest in their ideas. Now, these investors also act as WINIX’S partners and provide guidance to the team towards maintaining quality of products and about market needs.

Road Ahead

Driven towards innovate continually, the team WINIX is now focused on a plan to come up with another pioneering IOT product ‘Greener Building Solution’ by the fall of 2017. The product would leverage IOT to monitor power consumption of big building and take real-time measures to save power in critical areas. With the help of this product, customers will be able to view their power consumptions in real-time and they can also see the measures taken to bring that consumption down. It will be win-win situation for both customers and WINIX as for the subscription of the service customers will only have to pay a fraction of the money saved in consumption.

Spirits behind the Success

Subhajeet Roy, Founder & CEO, WINIX Technologies

With nearly two decades of rich and diversified experience in designing Applications and Products on different embedded platforms & various other technologies, Subhajeet has contributed to the development of various Wireless Media Streaming platforms which can deliver Rich Media Contents to the Handsets and Embedded Devices. He has also designed and developed a Wireless platform (Juke Box 2.0) which is believed to be industry’s most comprehensive Linux based platform for Wireless Audio and IOT. He has worked as Director of Engineering in multiple companies like Bridgeco Inc, Standard Microsystem (SMSC), and Microchip Technologies.

Ajay Singh Kathat, Chief Technical Officer, WINIX Technologies

Ajay Singh Kathat possesses nearly fifteen years of experience in Products and Mobile Handset Development and deployment. Ajay previously worked as Senior Engineering Manager at Samsung India and Microchip Technologies. Ajay bring years of technical expertise in multiple embedded platforms, which enable standard devices to connect to internet and reach the cloud using Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and various other technologies. His expertise lies in building complete system architecture and take products to Mass production quickly and effectively.

]]>https://startupcityindia.com/2017/06/winix-technologies-team-of-mavericks-leading-the-iot-product-development-space-in-india/feed/0Teja Gudluru’s UDo is all set to unleash a New Erahttps://startupcityindia.com/2017/06/teja-gudlurus-udo-is-all-set-to-unleash-a-new-era/
https://startupcityindia.com/2017/06/teja-gudlurus-udo-is-all-set-to-unleash-a-new-era/#respondTue, 20 Jun 2017 11:01:42 +0000http://startupcityindia.com/?p=3767

Teja Gudluru’s UDo is all set to unleash a New Era A realization of the huge gap existing in the application development space in creating powerful apps that provide real time responses effectively with good quality content encouraged Mr. Teja Gudluru, an expert veteran from training industry and a serial entrepreneur to create UDo, an […]

A realization of the huge gap existing in the application development space in creating powerful apps that provide real time responses effectively with good quality content encouraged Mr. Teja Gudluru, an expert veteran from training industry and a serial entrepreneur to create UDo, an android app with the mission of enabling people to explore viable solutions to their problems anytime anywhere. UDo serves as a platform for people to get connected with thousands of experts for seeking appropriate advice in over a hundred categories. An online app that connects people offline, UDo is an excellent peerless app that aims to solve people’s problem in four simple steps. A person seeking advice needs to create an account using Facebook/ Twitter/ Google+ or he may simply sign-up to register and then he can search experts browsing huge database. He is linked with the expert of choice to speak about his query. As soon as he has his questions answered, he needs to make payment for the advice using paytm. Speaking about solutions provided by the app, Mr. Gudluru, Founder & Chief Executive Officer of UDo says, “How many times has someone called a friend for an opinion on something, right before making a choice? But there are times when even a friend can’t make a decision when there are higher stakes involved; because, friends are not experts in everything. Life is beyond just texting for help – UDo helps people get connected to their UDo buddy and get talking!”

From travel and relationship advice to handling a difficult boss or career guidance, UDo has on demand express advice in life’s difficult situations or sometimes, simply tips for fashion, cooking and many more. UDo is on the runway of housing a broad Experts’ portfolio that will accommodate verified experts who can provide guidance on everything. UDo as a platform benefits every pillar of its service – users who need help; experts who have time to spare and companies who are looking for specific databases to reach out to get assistance from the app. This makes it a very accommodating and sustainable model. With expert advice on finger tips and the ability to connect to an actual verified person instantaneously, UDo is a complete package that has the potential to become the market leader in Search and assisted services.

UDo – You Do!

UDo is a colloquial abbreviation to the word You Do! Everyone faces several situations in life when there is a need for guidance and advice that helps to swim through difficulty and win. More often than not, people live in denial of this fact. Be it a student, an employee, a boss, a husband, a parent or even a CEO. Often people do not want to expose their vulnerability in expressing their incompetence or lack of understanding on some issue as most fear their credibility taking a hit. As an example, a manager might face problems facing a particular employee, but doesn’t want his/her boss to know this discomfort. UDo provides a platform where this manager can connect to a Leadership Development expert and take guidance on handling such difficult employee. So for the world, especially for his/her boss, it’s he who did the good job of handling a difficult employee, but behind him is us! Hence we are UDo ….we are with you!

As UDo is an android mobile application, there lies a huge market since any individual in the age ranges of nearly fifteen to more than sixty can benefit from UDo’s services and may become User or expert. The App’s broad portfolio of consumers encompasses major sections of User categories including Students, Professors, Colleges, Working professionals, Retired professionals, Industries, FMCG, e-commerce, Government and IT/ITES companies, Doctors, psychiatrists, Nutritional and Veterinary experts, Media and Film Production houses and more.

However, the team UDo is well aware of the risk associated with such an unconventional idea, where users have to make payments for simple advices; such a notion is non-existant in the Indian Culture. The biggest challenge lies in getting people used to the concept and acquainting them about the benefit they will get from it.

With an aspiration to be the world’s most preferred expert advice and customer outreach mobile app, UDo makes persistent endeavours to position itself as the best company to be associated with. The team UDo has developed an Attract, Innovate and Manage (AIM) Strategy and strides on the path shown towards achieving the aforesaid vision. The team strives to Attract users and businesses alike with innovative marketing campaigns and ethical business practices; Innovate efficiently and responsibly to create a seamless, user friendly and efficient technology platforms; and Manage employee expectations effectively and nurture them to grow professionally and personally. The team has worked out robust plans with set targets to be achieved on monthly basis; which will act as guiding beacons towards carving out the success path.

The UDO Difference

The team believes that uniqueness of the app accompanied with its serviceability is set to grab eyeballs of majority of people in the market. Elaborating upon the strengths of the app, Mr. Gudluru says, “UDo will disrupt how people see search and review based products. Our uniqueness is in the model where it is an open to all platform to sign-up as an expert and start making money for providing real time advice. We have no immediate competition in this model.”

Strong capabilities in transforming Employability demographics; paving the way for M-employment

Next ‘Must-have’ partner in the industry

A clear roadmap to be distinguished as the leader in Search and assisted services

What does the future hold?

With its unparalleled capabilities, the app is empowered to serve and develop several sections of the society; which may lead to unfolding a new era. Holding onto its vision for next five years, UDo has planned to target specific verticals or services for a certain period of time to establish its market.

Don’t train to get paid….get paid to Train

As quoted by Shri Pranab Mukherjee, Hon’ble President of India, “Youth of our country are our future”. A groundbreaking innovative app, UDo has been developed as a platform that not only offers assistance for every need of student population but also targets to reshape the youth employment space in India with an effort to uproot repressing unemployment. UDo provides the opportunity to students to serve as experts; they can gain exposure and get paid while making a contribution to the welfare of people. In UDo’s marketing words “Don’t train to get paid….get paid to Train”. As an attempt to enhance employment capabilities in India, UDo’s Project PARAS aims at showcasing trained students to MSME across India as their IT experts. UDo has collaborated with MSME in creating a platform where MSME can get their websites or e-commerce sites built for free or at giveaway cost by reaching out to UDo’s trained pool of experts through the app; this way it will support the Skill Development and Digital India initiatives by the government. There are numerous other ways students can be associated with UDo as experts. They can provide guidance as IT trouble shooters for basic router, Laptop, Mobile or Printers for users in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities. They can serve as on-demand experts for Start-ups for basic services like designing, social media marketing, influencers for marketing products, services and apps in colleges etc. They may serve also serve as tutors as well as interns.

UDo’s Vision

UDo aims at connecting IT professional working in IT and ITES companies with Students to guide, mentor and also refer them in to their companies. UDo teams will market to the IT employees that they can earn money while assisting the nation improve its employability and also get paid by their companies for referring profiles.

UDo’s B-B marketing team will focus on signing up recruitment vendors on a commercial basis who are looking for sourcing profiles. The recruiters will sign-up as experts under the jobs category. The users can dial free of cost in to UDo and give their preliminary interviews right from their phone without the initial hassle of CVs etc.

UDo is planning to enter a partnership with overseas educational consultants across the country on a commercial basis to provide free consultation to students interested in studying abroad.

UDo is doing all the ground work to develop into a FMCG, Mobile recharge, and Ecommerce outreach partner targeting students as users.

The Maverick behind UDo

Teja Gudluru, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, UDo

A Management Consultant, Corporate Trainer, Behavioural Coach, Teja Gudluru is also a serial Entrepreneur who is incubating the Mobile app start-up UDo-now.com and has been thriving in the training industry having founded CommSure Knowledge Solutions, a premier Learning and Development company in Hyderabad. Teja’s niche training competencies include various Behavioural, Leadership and Management development workshops using a multitude of Learning Technologies and has to date trained and coached over 25,000 individuals across the spectrum of industries and hierarchies in over 8 countries. A certified Leadership and Management Trainer by the American Society of Training and Development (ASTD), Teja constantly facilitates workshops for various Government Projects, Corporate Organizations and Educational Institutes. During his career as a trainer and behavioural coach, he has conducted up to 750 sessions for the many IT, ITES, Government and Educational institutions. During his stint with HSBC, he was responsible for designing, planning and delivering various management and leadership workshops for various hierarchies including the mid and senior level managers, etc. He has also designed, created and delivered Personality Development sessions in over 200 Colleges and Universities. Through his stress management and other skill based interventions in training he has also assisted various Government organizations like the AP Police Academy –Counter Intelligence cell, Revenue Department of the Government of Andhra Pradesh and the IAS officers club in Visakhapatnam.

“I have learnt in my journey that when you ignite a journey of self-realization in an individual, you are creating a powerful pathway for success not just for that person but also for the entire organization they work for. This is what motivates me to connect to people and passionately facilitate this beautiful journey!” says Teja Gudluru.

Corporate match makers who provides splendid staffing services–The Staffing Circle Delegating a company’s business process to third parties or external agencies with the purpose of leveraging low labor cost, improved quality and innovation is termed as Outsourcing. Generally, entrepreneurs start their ventures by themselves and at the initial stage; takingresponsibility of every business bureau including […]

Delegating a company’s business process to third parties or external agencies with the purpose of leveraging low labor cost, improved quality and innovation is termed as Outsourcing. Generally, entrepreneurs start their ventures by themselves and at the initial stage; takingresponsibility of every business bureau including marketing, sales, HR, technology and others by themselves. Aforesaid, staffing is also an essential affair for every organization. In fact, the absence of a good manpower can fail any organization’s vital resources like money, material and machine. To rectify this, staffing agencies perform expertise, retained recruitment and selection processes for organizations which don’t have the right resources regarding time, expertise and others essentials to manage the employment processes by making it a walk in the park and a gold package in terms of time and money. It serves entrepreneurs getting a step ahead to focus on their core business processes and goals. Best among staffing industries, The Staffing Circle provides top notch IT Staffing, Placement & Training services to companies in USA, UK & India, keeping its hawk eyes on talent and connecting it with golden opportunities for multinationals within staffing industry. The company holds specialization in placing people within recruitment industry, and connects potential employers with people and businesses.The Staffing Circle possesses a network of staffing professionals in order to find talent through referral and advertising. Incorporated in August, 2016 with its offices in India & USA, The Staffing Circle connects employers from United States, United Kingdom & Canada for recruiting operations jobs through its diverse network to bring home the work and opens door for tremendous opportunities.The company assists many reputed companies including Cambay Consulting, Spica Computers, CrowdMSP, S&H solutions, SoftNice Inc., Alpha Solutions, Cats America and others on all fronts of staffing.

Mr. Ayaz told The CEO Magazine, “We bridge the gap by servicing those needs of our clients who seek out to hire staffing professionals in India from USA, UK & Canada”

The corporate cupid behind The Staffing Circle

Syed Aiyaz

Founder & CEO, The Staffing Circle

A goal-centric young entrepreneur, Mr. Aiyaz holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Osmania University. His experience spans over a decade during which he has worked with diverse corporate consulting organizations including Wipro, TCS, iGATE, Syntel, Infosys, Geometric, Polaris, Capegemini and many others to add to his testimonial throughout India and the United States. His expertise encircles human resources, staffing, marketing, social media, advertising, corporate communications, branding, digital marketing and also on advising startups, mid-size and entrepreneurs to get started their social media awareness and branding over the digital age.
He has effectively addressed on the subject of talent solutions for many companies in Hyderabad and other metros in India and directing students of many notable universities on Social Media, Marketing, Branding, Business Management, Entrepreneurship and Human Resource Management as a guest lecturer.

Mr. Aiyaz has been the key player in all the facets of The Staffing Circle today and he keens to fetch aspiring results bringing long-term value to the company.

Accomplishing milestones in their own way, in their own time

Since its inception, the company has become a buzzword among eminent national as well international clients thus helping them to add few more success starts to their portfolio.

A US based crowd recruiting company CrowdMSP.com have partnered with The Staffing Circle to connect recruitment professionals for freelance staffing opportunities for a commission based incentives to professionals serving both IT & Non IT requirements.CrowdMSP is arecruiter tracking system that allows recruiters to crowd-source candidates from other recruiters around the world. The method is accessible, the recruitersneed to sign up to the platform, get verified and start submitting candidates. Once they get offered and complete the candidate services policy, CrowdMSP then pays the recruiter based on full time or on contract job commissions.

The Staffing Circle has strong social media presence over LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Slide Share and learning blog on YouTube which provides video based learning to individuals.

Road Map to move in the near future

The company longs to tie up with all staffing professionals amassing them all on The Staffing Circle platform including USA, UK & Canadian Employers with intent of creating a network of recruitment professional who share, discuss and join thought leadership and career enhancements.

ShopR360®:thenew face of Innovationemerges as a leader in the Entrepreneurial Landscape With an aspiration to innovate a technology that has the capability of filling the increasing gap between ‘Online’ and the ‘Offline’ retail world, Rajul Tandon and Pranav Bhruguwar conceptualized ShopR360® in 2015. With a lot of zeal, they embarked on the journey and started […]

ShopR360®:thenew face of Innovationemerges as a leader in the Entrepreneurial Landscape

With an aspiration to innovate a technology that has the capability of filling the increasing gap between ‘Online’ and the ‘Offline’ retail world, Rajul Tandon and Pranav Bhruguwar conceptualized ShopR360® in 2015. With a lot of zeal, they embarked on the journey and started with the development of product, which secured great responses before going to the market. Within two years of inception, the company has made a huge progress as a powerful Artificial Intelligence service based on shopper proximity that analyses‘In-Vicinity’ & ‘In-Store’ customers, derives intelligent analytics around their behavior and loyalty patterns and helps connect with customers in near real-time. To empower offline retailers, ShopR360®followsthree-pronged approach(a) ‘Measure’ to enable retailers know where does Sales opportunity exists for every store; (b) ‘Understand’ to help them understand the pre-billing consumer journey and behavior; and (c) ‘Engage’ to help them reach out to potential customers as they walk around the stores. All this is delivered using the existing store CCTV Cameras and Store-Wi-Fi of retail stores or malls, without any additional hardware or internal resources. Today, the company is led by Rajul Tandon as Chief Executive Officer, Pranav Bhruguwar Chief Operating Officer& Prabhat Ummat as Business Development Head. The core team in Head office has nearly thirty members to develop & manage the technology, and more than 60 employees as ‘Feet-On-Street’.

Speaking about the uniqueness of the solutions provided by the company, Mr. Rajul Tandon tells The CEO Magazine, “It is a unique advanced platform that leverages a combination of CCTV cameras and sensors togenerate new ‘pre-billing’ data that does not exist today. It enables retailers to extend their CRM and marketing to connect their online and offline retail channels; and engage shoppers through near real-time targeted content, promotions and e-coupons, thus increasing their probability in reaching the billing counter.” The blend of the founders’ diversified experience in retail and their expertise in technology helped to ensure that the company addressed all ‘real’ challenges of brick-and-mortar retailers. The exclusivity of ShopR360’s targeted problem as well as its solutions to counter the same accompanied with the company’s expertise in delivering unparalleled solutions to its clients have resulted in a huge client acquisition. It has been able to convert more than ninety five percent of Pilots to commercial orders and notably all of its clients have continued business and expanded store deployment beyond initial contract period. At present, the company is growing at an eye-seizing CAGR of three hundred percent; and serves Mall operators & Retailers across sizes: Chains, Department stores, Hypermarkets and Quick Service Restaurants & Hospitality industry.

Targeted Business Problem & Solution Provided

The multitude of challenges faced by brick-and-mortar retailers today envelop lack of visibility into their overall shopper traffic patterns; the true behavior of their loyal customers (recency and frequency of their visit to the store. Today, most retailers do not knowthe ratio of new vs loyal customer footfall; when did their loyal customerspass the store and not enter; when did they enter the store and not purchase and what was the reason for no purchase; how much time did they spend in the store and where did they spend the most time. They also have no channel of knowing when their repeat customers are in the vicinity,which could be the best time to lure them intor store.

ShopR360® tackles all these challenges. It helps the retailers to get meaningful shopper data, with no human intervention and without identifying any shopper, and it also provides a “last-mile connectivity” platform to the retailers to connect with their probable customers.

Key Differentiators

A stand-alone platform, which can work with existing legacy CCTV infrastructure

Application sits on the store infrastructure and analyses video locally resulting in very low network usage

Very low cost of infrastructure deployment as compared to competitors

Completely secured against data misuse and customer privacy issues

Delivers specific KPIs and use cases to impact business

Risks Involved

Brick-and-mortar retail is being run in a certain way for last 20 years. For example, retail chains currently use Conversions as the only KPI they track. ShopR360® has taken the risk of challenging and disrupting that conventional way of working and introducing new retail data to run their operations and measure marketing effectiveness. This will change the way retail is run today. Being sole/ leader in emerging markets in Video Analytics, ShopR360® has to do all the heavy lifting to convince businesses of the use cases and justify Return-On-Investment (ROI).

Achievements

For having targeted a business problem, which escaped the interest of entrepreneurial landscape in India, ShopR360® has received massive recognition in the market. The company has won several accolades and the major ones include (a) ReTechCon Start-up Award 2016, at the Retail Technology Conclave 2016, one of the Most Coveted Awards for Innovative Product centric Companies in India, (b) NASSCOM Emerge 50 Award, and (c) the Most Vibrant Startup of the year, CMO Asia Awards. The company has also been listed as the Top- 50 Retail Startups in the world by Insider Trends based out of London.

“Recognition from such prestigious forums reiterates that ShopR360® solution is poised to change the brick-and-mortar retail business with smart and actionable analytics. These awards come as an acceptance by the industry that our solution will go a long way in helping retailers bridge the gap between understanding customer behavior and driving profitability”, says Rajul. Tandon, Chief Executive Officer, ShopR360®.

Road Ahead

The company is now all geared up for expanding current business in emerging economies like MEA, SEA and China this financial year via strategic partnerships. Later on, it will direct its efforts towards extension in developed markets in the next financial year beginning with UK and Europe, before making attempts to enter US. At present the company serves majority of the clients from Retail. As a next phase of innovation, ShopR360® will be rolling out use cases for Video Analytics across other Market segments such as Market Research, Manufacturing, Banking, and Government Sector.

The Spirit behind the Success

Rajul Tandon, Chief Executive Officer, ShopR360®

Rajul Tandon is an experienced technology professional with vast global exposure. An IT professional with a degree in entrepreneurship, Rajul has worked and lived in USA, U.K. and India. According to him the best part of being an entrepreneur is waking up each day to newer challenges, which pushes one to explore newer possibilities, the once thought to be never existed! He has a wide exposure in implementing large scale IT solutions across functions and geographies. Having set up a responsive IT organization focusing on B2B services for Retail and Market Research, Rajul is currently focusing on Artificial Intelligence and Analyticssolutions for offline retail businesses. Knowing the pulse of new-age technologies gives him an edge to develop innovative, market driven products that deliver tangible value to clients.

Salebhai.com: A Blessing for the Diaspora in India & Abroad A variety of push and pull factors make people leave their homeland. According to Census 2011, two out of every five Indians are migrants. And with migration comes a hollowness in the lives of uprooted people, who are left with no choice but to lead […]

A variety of push and pull factors make people leave their homeland. According to Census 2011, two out of every five Indians are migrants. And with migration comes a hollowness in the lives of uprooted people, who are left with no choice but to lead a life bereft of their traditions, customs, cultural practices, and many other things close to their hearts.

Vishwa Vijay Singh, a sales and marketing veteran, identified this market gap caused by migration within India and abroad. After a thorough research, he learnt that most people move to fast-growing cities such as Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, and Pune for employment opportunities, education, or marriage. This motivated him to build a unique enterprise, SaleBhai.com, which is a true e-commerce marketplace that enables people living away from home to order a range of specialties directly from their hometowns. The website is a one-stop solution for discovering authentic regional and unique products from across India. Besides offering traditional household goods such as handicrafts, paintings, puja items, handloom goods, and herbal and wellness items, people get to choose from a wide variety of delicious consumable items such as sweets, snacks, chocolates, bakery, spices, dry fruits, beverages, and pickles.

Established in September 2015, the company is driven by a back-to-roots philosophy and focuses on the requirements of over 17 diaspora communities living in big Indian cities and abroad. With over 8,500 products sourced from over 100 cities and 300 cherry-picked vendors, the start-up provides people with an opportunity to buy products in various categories from sellers across India as well as discover new items from different communities and cultures.

Unique Proposition

The company aims to provide anything and everything that a migrant misses from his hometown. Customers of SaleBhai get an opportunity to buy hometown specialties in various categories throughout the year. Packages have been created to address genuine needs. E.g. the website offers various puja packs for Laxmi puja, Ganesh puja, Durga puja, and so on to help the diaspora fulfil their religious and spiritual needs. The products are sold at the same prices displayed at the retail shops and have detailed descriptions which include uses, benefits, facts, regional connect, history, and popularity, etc. Many food items come with serving ideas from chefs. The platform also lists complete information about vendors such as their history, lineage, and reputation. The company has a strong team which promises to deliver high return on investment (ROI) and consists of professionals with proven expertise in IT, marketing, content development, innovation, disruptive thinking, channel management, logistics, and customer support. Besides customer-friendly policies, the company pays due attention in promoting its sellers. It displays a detailed description with every product that is matchless in helping customers make informed decisions; it spends around 1000 words in describing a product and another 500 words on the seller.

As Singh puts it: “SaleBhai ensures that even if you are away from home, you need not be away from hometown specialties.” The company takes care of diversified demands of its customers living far away from their homeland. Its rich portfolio encompasses unique offerings that include seasonal fruits and products, festival-specific items such as rakhi during Rakshabandhan, jalebi-fafda during Dussehra, and modaks during Ganesh Chaturthi. It has also tied up with ISKCON to deliver Prasad blessed by the Lord at midnight on Janmashthami. Besides, it directly sources Mahashivratri Prasad offered at Kashi Vishwanath in Varanasi for Shiva devotees.

A glimpse of Salebhai’s financial health makes it evident that the company is striding fast on the path of success. In a very short span of time, it has obtained gross merchandise volume (GMV) of INR 2 crore. With its remarkable efforts, this e-commerce marketplace has built a rich customer base. In a chat with The CEO Magazine, Singh, Co-founder, SaleBhai.com, reflects upon the company’s strategies for building a strong customer base, “Building a successful customer base involves reaching out to them with brand awareness campaigns and then earning their faith by living up to the promises of providing unique hometown specialities with speedy delivery. We ensure repeat buying by driving home to them that Salebhai is always there to take them back to their roots as well as help them discover something unique and untried, every time. Our excellent offerings and services have resulted in 22% repeat purchase. We have a customer base of around 37,000 and add some 5,000 new customers every month.”

First-mover advantage in reaching out to an even wider customer base abroad

People from other countries can now discover unique specialities of India

Achievements

SaleBhai’s unique aspiration of addressing migrant communities as a category and fulfilling their desire of staying connected to their roots has gained a massive recognition in the Indian corporate landscape for its exclusivity. SaleBhai has been recognized as one of the ‘Top 100 Startups in India to Watch in 2017’ by Sutra HR while Tech In Asia acknowledged the company as one of the ‘5 Rising Startups in India’ in 2016. Its news and updates have been covered in over 250 news articles, both online and print, in the past year. Renowned publications such as the Economic Times, Business Standard, Times of India, Business World, Live Mint, ANI, and Entrepreneur have featured profiles, interviews, and industry news on the website.

The Spirit behind the Success

Vishwa Vijay Singh, Co-founder, Salebhai.com

Vishwa Vijay Singh possesses extensive experience, having worked with giants such as Airtel, Nerolac and ICICI Lombard. Prior to stepping into the journey of entrepreneurship, he served as national sales manager with ICICI Lombard. He was also part of the retail team at ICICI Lombard (as vice president – motor business) that grew from $10m to $400m in six years. At SaleBhai, his chief responsibilities are handling the overall functioning of the company with direct involvement in marketing, logistics, and product categories.

Sagacito revolutionizes Front end sales space with its Artificial Intelligence powered Sales guidance systems ‘Selling’holds major importance in a business as it controls the growth and development of business and forms the major base for revenue generation.However, it is hailed as the most difficult task of all the functions carried out in a business; most […]

‘Selling’holds major importance in a business as it controls the growth and development of business and forms the major base for revenue generation.However, it is hailed as the most difficult task of all the functions carried out in a business; most probably because the success in selling is not completely guaranteed by sales personnel’s skills. There is always an uncertainty till the selling is done. Sales personnel have to take a lot of rejection and chase targets, often with adverse physical infrastructure that makes things worse. They have to manage too many inputsthat confuse them andadd burden to their cognitive load. Gradually, such a pressure results in a fall in personal credibility and the relationship-building ability of the sales personnel. Furthermore, the cut throat competition that stems from the advent of globalization has been burdening companies and sales managers in particular to heighten net realizations (yields) or margins.

The need for a transformative sales guidance system that has the ability to drive growth in business inflamed the entrepreneurial spirit in Arunabh Das Sharma, Former President, Bennett & Coleman and Co. Ltd.And Ravi Dhariwal ex CEO of BCCL (Times Group) and led to the establishment of Sagacito Technologies, a mobile first, cloud-based enterprise Solutions Company that is powered with data analytics and committed to deliver ‘Informed Intelligence’. The company is found with the vision of revamping Pricing and Revenue management of businesses through its suite of revolutionary sales guidance products and tools.Bringing science to the art of sales; the company strives to integrate sales acumen with advanced data science for achieving insights and intelligence that empower businesses to maximize profit margins and market shares. With its suite of exclusive products and tools, the company aims to ease the whole process of sales for a business by providing a system that consistently recommends the ‘Right price’, which is the key to revenue generation and ultimate profitability.

Product Portfolio

The firm’s vision is firmly rooted in belief that having the required information to make the right choice at the ‘Point of Execution’ is the key to achieve success in business. ‘Point of Execution’ or the point just before a sale is made is the stage in the process of sales where the sales person needs maximum support to make sure that the sale happens successfully. The company’s proprietary product platform leverages an absolute blend ofdata science, machine learning and artificial intelligence to create exclusive products that provide the answers needed just before the sale is made.

Let’s take a brief look into Sagacito’s unique products:

P-Mod – This is an adaptive planning module that can do in-market simulations, sensitivity analysis and deployment of the annual operating plan at the day / sales person level. It ensures that the salesperson wakes up to a task specific guidance and that his/her actions are then monitored to deliver the business plan. The business plan itself is dynamic and constantly adapts depending on how the week/month/year is progressing and also allows for changes to the plan made by management.

Y-Max – A product for maximizing yield, Y-Max uses a predictive pricing and optimization algorithm to deliver a “most likely” price that maximizes the net realization as well as recommends the most optimal page position. A combination of both can drive yield up by 5-8% per year, which may translate to a double digit PBT (Profit before Tax) growth.

P-Gov – A product that uses data science to work in conjunction with Y-Max to eliminate bad deals, to create transparency and to ensure that all approvals are instant.

Rev-X – The revenue multiplier that has a proven track record of delivering ‘Profitable Growth’ to clients. It provides real-time ‘cross-sale and up sale’ recommendations that enables the salesperson to sell more to the existing clients. Also, it does predictive churn modeling for clients to ensure that while the yield is going up, it is not coming at the cost of market share.

Value to Clients

Once associated with Sagacito, a client gets access to a technically powered revolutionary system that transforms the front end sales space of the company and enables it to achieve amazing figures in profits. The client’s businessgains numerous benefits through an exclusive machine learning based price guidance system that generates the optimal price quote for every transaction and enhances the chances of making a sale. The system offers step by step guidance to the sales peopleand directs them on what to sell; how to sell and to whom; and at what price/ mix combination. It provides real time insights on “Cross and Upsell” possibilities and has the ability to manage any deviations based on client negotiations in market. It acts as an Artificial Intelligence powered virtual assistant to the sales people and supports them during the entire sales process. In addition to that, there are features that provide a hassle free and smooth experience to the user; the system operates completely on mobile devices and works on‘Pay as you use’ model and needs no investment on hardware.

Predictive and prescriptive analytics to recommend the pricing and mix of products to be sold in B2B negotiations

Game theoretic modeling and Artificial intelligence for real-time insights

Use of Python, Hadoop, Spark and MINLP solvers to deal with multi-objective problems involving complex constraints

Strong Capabilities in handling large data sets both in batch and streaming mode

Open Source Technology Stack

Extensive use of Amazon Web Services in conjunction with best in class industry tools

Road Ahead

In a short span of time, Sagacito has managed to establish a firm footing in the market with its exclusive and successful approach towards instilling efficiency in front end sales segment. The firm, striding on the path of success, has developed a clear roadmap for next five years which is in three phases. Sagacitoplans tostrenghthen its roots in India and South Asia for the next eighteen months. Post which it hopes toexpand its footprints in Asia Pacific Region, Middle East & Africa, United States and Europe over the nextfew years. At present the company offers its services for B2B Channel Sales for Media, CPG and Hospitality. As a plan for next three years, the company focuses on extending its unique portfolio services for diversified industry verticals such as Telecom, Hospitality, E-commerce, Airlines, and BFSI& Infrastructure. In addition to that, the company is endeavoring persistently towards widening its matchless product and service portfolio that already envelops innovative and transformative products such as P-Mod, Y-Max, P-Gov and Rev-X. The team would focus on creating leading edge offerings namely, Instantaneous algorithmic pricing, Gamification, Virtual assistant (both chat and speech), Point of sale data collection and Client level Intelligence. With an aspiration to change the face of how functions are carried out in the domain, Sagacito is making determined efforts tocome up with groundbreaking products as NLP based Voice virtual assistant, multilingual UI’s, Sales training tools, Sales Collaboration tools, Sales Incentive tools and Auction / Reverse auction bid tools.

RAW Pressery – ‘Just the fruit and nothing else’ Nowadays, fruit juices are considered as a healthy choice for weight management, prevention of cancer and cardiovascular diseases, blood pressure management and more. Not only that, raw fruit juices are also preferred for increasing the levels of HB and RBCs, boosting immune system and removing toxins […]

Nowadays, fruit juices are considered as a healthy choice for weight management, prevention of cancer and cardiovascular diseases, blood pressure management and more. Not only that, raw fruit juices are also preferred for increasing the levels of HB and RBCs, boosting immune system and removing toxins from body. Catering to the increasing demands of people, various brands are offering packaged fruit juices that claim to offer many health benefits. People, unaware of the actual composition of store bought juices, fail to understand that most of them contain preservatives and sugar as well as unlisted additives which may adversely affect our health. RAW Pressery, India’s first and largest clean label F&B brand, aims to transform the way people eat and drinkand provides 100% natural fruit juices completely free of additives like sugar, preservatives, chemicals, colors or flavors. Their juices are prepared with farm fresh ingredients and have a shelf life of twenty-one days. The company’s product offerings envelop nearly thirty cold pressured flavors which include juices, smoothies, boosters, soups, nut-milks and coconut water.The company claims that on consumption people can tell a fresh juice from a juice that they have come to ‘believe’ is fresh.

Established in 2013, the company is a brainchild of Anuj Rakyan and it is incorporated as a part of Rakyan Beverages Private Limited in Mumbai. A vertically integrated company, RAW Pressery retains matchless in-house capabilities in farm-produce procurement, processing, manufacturing, cold-chain logistics, warehousing and distribution. In a short span of time, the company has positioned itself as the leading cold-press juice brand spread across ten cities in over 1100 points-of sale. Anuj Rakyan conceived the idea of setting up this company while he was nursing his own injury and was advised to increase his protein intake. He discovered that fresh fruits and vegetables have a very high nutritional value, which canbe absorbed directly into the bloodstream if it’s consumed as a juice. However, he could not depend upon ready to drink packaged fruit juices as most of them had preservatives, added sugar, water and additives and also it’s a known fact that fruit juices available in the market are devoid of actual nutrients as they are heat treated and pasteurized. This realization appealed to Anuj’s entrepreneurial spirit and led to the establishment RAW Pressery.

Why Cold-pressed juices?

Usually, preparation of fruit juices employs conventional pasteurization and heat treatment that result in loss of significant nutrients. However, cold-press juicing is done by applying thousands of pounds of pressure to extract the maximum amount of liquid from fresh fruits and vegetables; which doesn’t require additional heat or oxygen. The utilization of pressure to extract the juice helps in ensuring great nutrition, freshness, flavor, and natural taste without adding chemicals, preservatives, sugar or water.

Success Mantra

RAW Pressery pioneered the manufacturing of cold-pressed juices in India. It is the only company in Asia employing advanced cold pressurization with High Pressure Processing to maintain shelf life and produces about 7000 litres of juice a day. By replacing the conventional pasteurization method of mass producing juices with the cold pressed process, the company has successfully created a niche for the cold pressed juices in the beverage industry. Moreover, the company makes every possible effort to maintain the standards of hygiene and safety that adds to increasing demand for refreshing fruit juices. Raw Pressery strives to reduce cost while maintaining effective top-line achievement to keep its word for delivering a quality product that provides numerous health benefits to clients. The company’s unparagoned beverage portfolio encompasses twenty-six special flavors that happen to be luscious blends of fresh fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds and promise wholesome nutrition keeping away the unnatural.RAW Pressery’s strict adherence to keep its products completely natural and healthy has ignited a wave of transformation in the market; which is being ardently embraced by Indian masses. The company connects with the consumers on a deep level and endeavors to reach out to their hearts. Speaking about the success mantra, Mr. Anuj Rakyan, Managing Director, RAW Pressery, tells The CEO Magazine, “At Raw Pressery, we focus our energies on developing products redefine standards of quality, taste and freshness, bringing the customer closer to fruits of nature in their most glorious form. This is done by listening to the customer and designing products that closely address the gap between healthy and tasty. Brands that have the customer at the heart of their activities are able to establish a relationship of trust and loyalty.”

Major Milestones

RAW Pressery has achieved a number of milestones that have become its stepping stones to success and have helped it to position itself as India’s largest cold pressed juice brand. Born in Anuj’s kitchen, the company started production in June, 2013 after Anuj and his team had spent countless hours juicing and consulting with farmers. The company took baby steps towards achieving growth and began home delivery deploying Dabbawalla network across Mumbai and Pune. In April 2014, the company entered into a partnership with modern retail outlets,Foodhall and Godrej Nature’s Basket for direct selling of products. The same year, RAW Pressery bagged first ever round of funding from Sequoia Capital. The year 2015 witnessed achievement of two major landmarks in the company’s journey;it achieved notable growth with expansionof retail and Direct-to-home presence across Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru. Also, the company set up its first High Pressure Processing Machine in Asia in its Pressery at Panvel in August. In January, 2016 the company extended its special beverage portfolio launching four new categories– (Benefits, Basics, Boosters and Soups) and 19 new juices. The company spread its roots in five more cities across nearly eight hundred Points of Sale and more than four hundred Quick Service Restaurant outlets. Recently, Bollywood Diva, Jacqueline Fernandez joined RAW Pressery family as an investor believing in its ‘cleaner & healthier future.’

Awards & Recognitions

Entrepreneur of the Year – Service Business – Beverages (Entrepreneur India)

Entrepreneur of the Year- Consumer Business (Entrepreneur India)

Most Innovative Packaged Beverage of the Year 16-17 at the Indian Restaurant Awards (Restaurant India)

Coca Cola Golden Spoon Award for Most Admired Brand- Retail Partnership of the year 2016-17

In a chat with The CEO Magazine, Anuj Rakyan throws some light on his future plans and says, “Making eating healthy easier for the Indian audiences, we look at foraying into the fresh food and packaged nutriments. We wish to further establish Micro Cold Presseries across our laid out geographies, each equipped with the best of produce and technology to give our discerning customer a truly phygital experience, integrating online and offline. These establishments will allow a consumer to place an order digitally and see their beverage of choice getting made, in real time.”

The Man behind the Success

Anuj Rakyan, Founder & Managing Director, RAW Pressery

A graduate from Duke University, Anuj began his career as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley. He then moved to the world of brand consulting at FutureBrand, New York. Before embarking on his entrepreneurial journey, Anuj spent the past decade building operations and helping brands in the diamond jewelry industry. He has worked with well-known names like Gitanjali Gems and Nirav Modi Jewels.